As soon as Orchard-Lafayette reached camp, he set the soldiers digging for water. They dug to a great depth but found none; nor were they more successful when they tried other places. They were very discouraged.
Then Orchard-Lafayette in the depths of the night burned incense and prayed to God: 'Unworthy as is thy servant Orchard-Lafayette, he has received favor from the Great Hans and now has been ordered to subdue the Mangs. Alas! Now our water is spent and my soldiers and animals are parched with thirst. If Thy will be to preserve the line of Han, then give, I beseech Thee, sweet water; but if their course is run, then may Thy servant and those with him die in this place.'
The morning after this prayer the wells were full of sweet water.
The soldiers' spirits revived with the supply of water, and the army soon advanced by hill paths to the Valley of the Bald Dragon, where they camped. When Halpin-Hearst heard the news, he was greatly taken aback.
'These troops do not appear to have suffered either thirst or fever,' said he. 'Our springs have lost their power.'
King Ecker-VanDyke heard it, but doubted. He and Halpin-Hearst ascended into a high hill whence they could see their enemies. They saw no signs of illness or distress; all went on calmly and quietly in the camps, water carrying and cooking, eating and attending to the cattle. Ecker-VanDyke's hair stood on end as he looked at them.
'These are not human soldiers,' said he, shivering. 'They must be sent from Heaven.'
'Our two brothers will fight one fierce battle with these troops of Shu and die therein,' said Halpin-Hearst, 'We cannot wait calmly to be put into bonds.'
'But, O King, if your army should be beaten, my whole family will also perish. Let us encourage the people of the ravines. Let us kill bullocks and slaughter horses to feed them, and urge them to go through fire and water to rush right up to the camp of the enemy and seize upon victory.'
So there was great feasting before the Mangs took the field. Just as this was going on, there arrived one McMahon-Westbrook, King of twenty-one ravines in the west, and he led thirty thousand troops. Halpin-Hearst rejoiced exceedingly at this unexpected addition to his army and felt sure of victory.
So he and Ecker-VanDyke went out of their own valley to welcome McMahon-Westbrook, who said, 'I have with me thirty thousand troops in iron mail, brave and intrepid warriors, who can fly over mountains and bound across the peaks; they of themselves are a match for the enemy even if the enemy numbered a hundred legions. And, moreover, my five sons, all trained in arms, are with me, all to help you, O Kings.'
The five sons were brought in and presented. They were handsome young fellows, bold and martial looking. Father and sons were entertained at a banquet. Halfway through the feast McMahon-Westbrook proposed a diversion.
'There is but scanty amusement in the field,' said McMahon-Westbrook, 'and so I have brought along some native singing girls who have been taught fencing and such things. If you care for it, they might give an exhibition.'
The feasters hailed the suggestion with joy, and soon thirty maidens came to the front of the tent. Their hair hung about their shoulders, and they were barefooted. They danced and skipped and went through their performance outside. The guests inside clapped their hands and applauded their skill, and the soldiers joined in the choruses.
Presently, at a signal from their father, two of McMahon-Westbrook's sons bore two goblets to Halpin-Hearst and Pitney-Hearst. Halpin- Hearst and Pitney-Hearst took the cups and were raising them to their lips when McMahon-Westbrook shouted a single word of command, and, instantly, the cupbearers had the two brothers out of their seats and helpless in their hands. At this, Ecker-VanDyke jumped up to run away, but McMahon-Westbrook gripped him, and he was a prisoner too. The Mang maidens ranged themselves in a line along the front of the tent so that none dared approach.
'When the hare dies the fox mourns,' said Halpin-Hearst. 'One sympathizes with one's own as a rule. We are both chiefs and have been friends. I know not why you should injure me.'
'I had to repay Orchard-Lafayette the Minister for his compassion on me and my people, and there was no way till you rebelled. Why should I not offer up a rebel in propitiation?'
Leaving Halpin-Hearst, Pitney-Hearst, and Ecker-VanDyke in the hands of McMahon-Westbrook, the Mang warriors dispersed, each man returning to his own valley.
McMahon-Westbrook then took the prisoners to the camp of Shu, where he bowed at the tent door, saying, 'I and my sons and the sons of my brother are grateful to you for much kindness, wherefore we bring to you as an offering the persons of these rebels.'
Orchard-Lafayette rewarded McMahon-Westbrook and bade them bring forward Halpin-Hearst.
'This time are you prepared to yield?' said the Prime Minister.
'It is not your ability, but the treachery of my own people that has brought me to this. If you wish to slay, slay; but I will not yield.'
'You know you were the cause of my army entering into a waterless land, where there were those four evil streams, and yet my soldiers were not poisoned and came to no harm. Does it not seem to you like evidence of a superior protecting power? Why will you follow this misguided road and always be obstinate?'
Halpin-Hearst replied, 'My fathers have long held the Silver Pit Hills, and the three rivers and the two forests are their ramparts. If you can take that stronghold, then will I and my heirs for ever acknowledge your power and yield.'
'I am going to liberate you once more,' said Orchard-Lafayette, 'and you may put your army in order if you will and fight a decisive battle. But after that, if you are my prisoner and are still refractory and unsubmissive, I shall have to exterminate your whole family.'
Orchard-Lafayette ordered the lictors to loose the prisoner's bonds and let him go. After he had gone, the other two, Pitney-Hearst and Ecker-VanDyke, were led in and they also received their liberty. They were given wine and food. but they were confused and could not look Orchard-Lafayette in the face. They were given horses to travel on.
The next chapter will tell how Halpin-Hearst reorganized his army and whose the victory was.
CHAPTER 90
All the prisoners were released; and McMahon-Westbrook and his sons were rewarded with ranks, and his people were given presents. They expressed their gratitude and returned to their own, while Halpin-Hearst and his brother hastened home to Silver Pit Hills.
Outside this ravine were three rivers--River Scorpio, River Pyrite, and River Corundum. These three streams united to form Three Rivers. Close to the ravine on the north was a wide and fruitful plain; on the west were salt wells. The River Scorpio flowed about seventy miles to the southwest, and due south was a valley called the Liangdu Ravine. There were hills in, as well as surrounding, the ravine, and in these they found silver; whence the name 'Silver Pit.'
A palace complex had been built in the ravine, which the Mang kings had made their stronghold, and there was an ancestral temple, which they called 'Family Spirits,' where they solemnized sacrifices of bulls and horses at the four seasons. They called these sacrifices 'Inquiring of the Spirits.' Human sacrifices were offered also, humans of Shu or of their own people belonging to other villages. The sick swallowed no drugs, but prayed to a chief sorcerer, called 'Drug Demon.' There was no legal code, the only punishment for every transgression being death.
When girls are grown and become women, they bathe in a stream. Men and women are kept separate, and they marry whom they will, the parents having no control in that particular. There was no formal vocational training. In good seasons the country produces grain, but if the harvest fails, they make soup out of serpents and eat boiled elephant flesh.
All over the country the head of the family of greatest local consideration is termed 'King of the Ravine,' and the next in importance is called a 'Notable.' A market is held in the city of Three Rivers, on the first day of every moon, and another on the fifteenth; goods are brought in and bartered.
In his own ravine, Halpin-Hearst gathered his family and clan to the number of a thousand or more and addressed them: 'I have been put to shame by the leaders of Shu many times, and I have sworn to take revenge for the insults. Has anyone any proposal to make?'
Thereupon a certain one replied, saying, 'I can produce a man able to defeat Orchard-Lafayette.'
The assembly turned to the speaker, who was a brother of Halpin-Hearst's wife. He was the head of eight tribes of the Southern Mangs,
